General Tips
- Use cold water to prevent protein stains such as blood, eggs, or dairy from setting.
- Use a nail scrub brush or toothbrush to scrub a stain.
- Rub white bar soap on the stain.
- Add 1/4 cup of baking soda or 1 cup of cider vinegar to your every day laundry to brighten clothes.
- Add 1 cup of ammonia or 1/2 cup of pine disinfectant cleaner to your everyday laundry as an added stain and odor remover.
Food Stains
Alcohol
- Soak in cool water, then wash in warm, sudsy water.
- Grape Juice or Chocolate
- Pretreat stain with and enzyme product.
- Rub with club soda until stain is gone.
- Wash chocolate with sudsy water with a little ammonia.
- Use a dry cleaning solvent.
- Remove a fresh grape juice stain from cotton or linen by immediately pouring hot water through the material.
Coffee or Tea
- Sponge the stain with cool water.
- Soak clothing in 1 quart lukewarm water, ½ teaspoon dishwashing liquid, and 1 teaspoon white vinegar.
Food Coloring Stain
- Rub with toothpaste and rinse with cold water.
Juice
- Rub the stain with cold water then soak in a quart of warm water with 1 tablespoon of ammonia and ½ teaspoon of liquid detergent.
- Apply baking soda to the stain.
Ketchup
- Apply baking soda to the stain.
Milk
- Sprinkle on unflavored meat tenderizer and rinse in cold water.
- Presoak in enzyme product for 30 minutes if stain is new, several hours if stain is old.
Salad Dressing and Oil-Based Sauces
- Apply cornstarch to the spot to absorb grease.
Wine
- Soak a red wine stain with white wine and rinse in cool water.
- Use and enzyme laundry detergent.
- Rinse white wine with cool water.
Baby Stains
- Drool
- Apply baking soda to the stain.
Formula and Spit-Up
- Keep and spray bottle of warm water mixed with baking soda handy to prevent spit-up from setting on clothing.
- Soak in a covered bucket of warm water mixed with 1 cup of borax. Add another cup of borax to the wash cycle.
- For color-safe clothes, add to warm water ½ cup of dishwashing detergent and ½ cup of color safe bleach and soak over night.
- Flush the stain with water immediately and spot-clean with diluted ammonia.
Urine
- Presoak clothing in 1 quart of warm water, ½ teaspoon of mild liquid detergent, and 1 tablespoon of ammonia.
- Follow treatment of ammonia with vinegar or lemon.
- If all else fails, try and enzyme paste for 20 minutes.
- Note: Do not treat with bleach, as it may possibly create toxic chlorine gas.
Outdoor Stains
- Dirt, Mud, and Grease
- Rub on carpet cleaner before washing.
- Rub grease with shortening or lard to absorb in, then scrape off lard before putting in washer.
- Boil stained white socks in water with lemon slices.
Grass
- Rub with a solution of one part rubbing alcohol to two parts water on colorfast material.
- Rub with liquid detergent or shampoo for oily hair.
- Pretreat stains on clothes by rubbing in non-gel white toothpaste with a toothbrush. Let sit overnight, then wash.
Other Stains
- Blood
- Soak in cold water and then rub with soap until stain almost disappears, then launder.
- Apply a paste of cornstarch and water, then allow it to dry.
- Sprinkle a layer of table salt on top of stain.
- Rub on hydrogen peroxide, then soak in cold water for ½ an hour.
- If all else fails, add ammonia to the wash cycle.
Crayons
- Place the fabric on an ironing board, then cover stain with wax paper and iron on high heat.
- Gum
- Put clothing in the freezer or freeze the stain with and ice cube, then scrape off the gum once it is hard.
- Remove gum from hair with peanut butter.
- Soften gum with egg white and then scrap gum off.
- Rub a little odorless paint thinner in to dissolve the gum, them launder separately.
Ink
- Loosen stain with hairspray.
- Moisten with a teaspoon of dishwashing liquid, 1 quart of warm water, and 1 teaspoon of white vinegar (don’t use vinegar on cotton or linen). Blot and repeat. Let sit 30 minutes.
- Presoak the stain in milk
Ballpoint Ink
- Apply lukewarm glycerin, blot, and flush with water.
- Add several drops of ammonia and blot.
- Flush with water.
Nail Polish
- Sponge the stain with acetone-based mail polish remover and let dry.
Paint
- Flush latex paint with warm water.
- Flush oil-based paint with turpentine.
Perspiration
- Pre-treat by rubbing the area with baking soda.
- Soak fabric for one hour in water with 3 dissolved asprin.
Rust
- Soak in salt and lemon juice.
Yellow Stains
- Spray oven cleaner on the spot and let it dry. Take care not to get any on your skin.
- For yellowed white cottons or linens , wash in hot water and twice as much detergent. Stop the cycle 15 minutes in and soak the clothing for 15 minutes. Start again and repeat the cycle.
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